prove a pAssport to respect in any society. It is different with the fastidious and excessi,e delicacy of the belle. So entirely is this an appendage of I\ certain social position that, when that is gone, it perishes like a crushed flower. 'l'he admirers of the delicate lady hBve deserted her, She is treated with coldness, even rudeness. No one so helpless, so dependent, as she. She shone, like the moon, in I\ reflected brightness, and, foolishly inconsiderate, gloried in it as something of her own. IV, DELICACY MAY BE COMPELLED TO STOOP TO THE BITTEREST DEGRADATIONS, This is the lesson of the verses before us, and we need not dwell upon it. But the thought of such possibilities should quell pride and awaken awe. 'l'he depths of want and woe to which the most delicately nurtured may sink, are only paralleled by the possi• bilities of joy tbAt lie bidden in the most wretched souls, if they will but forsake sin and give themselves up to Jesus and the guidance of his Spirit.-J. 0. Ver. 63.-God re:joicing in }udgment. The language in this verse is bold, almost beyond example. It jars with our conceptions of the Divine Being to think of him as " rejoicing" in the destruction of even the most obdurate of sinners. He declares that be has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth (Ezek. xviii. 32). Christ predicted Jerusalem's fall, but "wept over it" (Luke xix. 41). The language is best inter- preted, not of actual joy felt by God in the execution of his judgments, but anthropo- pathically of the certainty, rapidity, and nnsparingness with which, like waves chasing each other to the shore, strokes of judgment would descend, as if God took pleasure in inflicting them. The figure is derived from God's joy in the communication of blessings. As God's joy-in this case a real joy-was shown in the number and accumulation of the blessings, so would it be with the judgments-he would appear to rejoice in the sending of these also. We do not, however, ignore the fact that God must approve of, yea, rest with satisfaction in, every exercise of his perfections, even in the infliction of judgment. The verse, in any view of it, is a very terrible one in its bearings on the prospects of the wicked.-J. 0. Vers. 65-68.-Mental torture as a result of sin. The picture here drawn is true In an especial sense of the Jews in their state of exile, maddened, affrighted, and kept in continual torture and suspense by the persecutions and miseries they have been made to endure. We apply it to the state of the ungodly generally-a state of internal misery resulting from transgression. L UNAPPEASABLE RESTLESSNESS. (Ver. 65.) The sinner is destitute of peace (Isa. lvii. 21). 1. There is nothing to give it. No inward source of comfort. No perennial spring of sn.tisfaction. 2. There is everything to t:ike it away. (1) An evil con- ecience. (2) Sense of God's displeasure. (3) Inward disunion and anarchy. The consequence is that the sinner cannot settle. He does not feel at rest. He cannot be happy or contented in any place or occupation. Like a patient tossing under fever, he thinks that his uneasiness arises from his position, whereas it is his disordtr. (Cf. 'Childe Harold,' i 4, 5; or words of Tiberius to his senate-" What to write to you, conscript fathers, or how to write, or what not to write, may all the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I feel that they are daily destroying me, if I know.") II. FEAB Al>"'D TREMilLING OF HEADT. (Vers. 65, 66.) "'l'he wicked flee when no man pursueth" (Prov. xxviii 1). The guilty conscience is full of te1Tors. It "does make cowards of us all." Gives ris,, in groundless fears (Joseph's brethren, Gen. xiv. 3; L 15). Morbid working of imaginatiuu-starting in sleep (Richard III.), fancying sounds and movements (Macbeth). Works despair (Saul, 1 Sam. xxviii.). It un- nerves and unmans. III. LOATHING AND WEAllINEBS OF LIFE. (Ver. 67.) A sated despairing feeling, in- capable of removal or alleviation. Ennui. Unbearable dragging on of time. "I may say that in all my seventy-five years I have never had a month of genuine comfort. It has been the perpetlllll rolling of a stone, which I have always had to raise anew" (Goethe). Cf. 'Childe Harold,' as above-
• Be felt the fulness of BBtiety, TheJ1 loathed ho in his J10.ti ve laJ1d to dwell ; • (Jn, XXVIII, 1-68.) THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 441
or MBUhew Arnold's lines- " On tho.t hud po.gan world disgust And eo.ted loo.thing foll; Deep weariness and sated lust Made humo.n life a hell," eto. J.O.